BWC Liquid Crystal Quartz

Peter Wenzig notes, "First LCD watch. In early spring 1971 BWC Biel/Swiss and Optel USA agreed upon a cooperation for the introduction of a solid state watch, working with a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). Unfortunately the launch had to be delayed till 1973, due to a lot of technical hurdles. The competition for the first solid state watch was lost, because the Hamilton Pulsar was already launched. This watch was a huge disaster for BWC. Reasons may be the tremendous high price, low robustness and low contrast of the display. The display was using the dynamic scattering principle and could be read out without pushing any button. As well known, improved versions of this display types won the the market against the LEDs at the end. One of the rarest and most important pieces in watch history"